Thomas-Alexandre Dumas | |
---|---|
![]() Portrait by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, c. 1797 | |
Birth name | Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie |
Born | Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) | 25 March 1762
Died | 26 February 1806 Villers-Cotterêts, France | (aged 43)
Allegiance | ![]() ![]() |
Service/ | Army |
Years of service | 1786–1801 |
Rank | General-in-chief |
Commands | Army of the Western Pyrenees Army of the Alps Army of the West Commander of Cavalry, Army of the Orient |
Battles/wars | |
Relations | Alexandre Dumas (son) Alexandre Dumas fils (grandson) Alexandre Lippmann (great-great-grandson) |
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (French: [tɔmɑ alɛksɑ̃dʁ dymɑ davi də la pajət(ə)ʁi]; known as Thomas-Alexandre Dumas; 25 March 1762 – 26 February 1806) was a Creole general, from the French colony of Saint-Domingue, in Revolutionary France.
Along with his French contemporary Joseph Serrant and other notable brothers in arms in the French Army Toussaint Louverture from Saint-Domingue, Abram Petrovich Gannibal from Imperial Russia and Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski from Poland, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas is notable as a man of African descent (in Dumas's case, through his mother) leading European troops as a general officer.[2] All four commanded as officers in the French Army and apart from Gannibal, who was only captain and engineer-sapper in the Army of Louis XV during his formative years, they all gained their general ranks in the French Army, about four decades after Gannibal had done the same in Russia. Yet Dumas was the first person of color in the French military to become brigadier general, divisional general, and general-in-chief of a French army.[3]
Born in Saint-Domingue, Thomas-Alexandre was the son of Marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and of Marie-Cessette Dumas, an enslaved woman of African descent. He was born into slavery because of his mother's status, but his father took him to France in 1776 and had him educated. Slavery had been illegal in metropolitan France since 1315 and thus any slave would be freed de facto by being in France.[4] His father helped him enter the French military.
Dumas played a large role in the French Revolutionary Wars. Having entered the military in 1786 at age 24 as a private, by age 31 he commanded 53,000 troops as the General-in-Chief of the French Army of the Alps. Dumas's victory in opening the high Alpine passes in 1794 enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire. During the battles in Italy, Austrian troops nicknamed Dumas the Schwarzer Teufel ("Black Devil", Diable Noir in French).[5] in 1797. The French—notably Napoleon—nicknamed him "the Horatius Cocles of the Tyrol"[6] (after a hero who had saved ancient Rome[7]) for defeating a squadron of enemy troops at a bridge over the Eisack River in Clausen (today Klausen, or Chiusa, Italy) in March 1797.
Dumas participated in the French attempt to conquer Egypt and the Levant during the Expédition d’Égypte of 1798-1801 when he was a commander of the French cavalry forces. On the march from Alexandria to Cairo, he clashed verbally with the Expedition's supreme commander Napoleon Bonaparte, under whom he had served in the Italian campaigns. In March 1799, Dumas left Egypt on an unsound vessel, which was forced to run aground in the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples, where he was taken prisoner and thrown into a dungeon. He languished there until the spring of 1801.
Returning to France after his release, he and his wife had a son, Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), who would become one of France's most widely-read authors. The son's most famous literary characters were inspired by his father.[8]
Durant l'occupation allemande, le gouvernement de Vichy, faisant suite au décret du 11 décembre 1941, avait effacé la mémoire d'un officier supérieur d'origine africaine, le général Dumas [...], en faisant mettre à bas sa statue.
© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search